I can stretch out my arms and hold the sky
Flower open to sun and soft breeze
Til the world rumbles and clouds crowd round
Arms wrapped in my shrunken world to keep the hail from bruising using skin to seal it out, heal it up because storms come and we curl and shelter as lightning hurls until it passes ozone smell floats off and birds sing as warmth dries up the puddled tears through years of weathered cycle learning that the changes range from good to bad and back again and seasons reason us like planets orbit, moons waxing waning tides and rides on waves of life and strife is just a moment in a lifetime bought a ticket ride the ride enjoy the view from every side as all will end you don’t know when
Category Archives: Personal
All Saints Sunday November 6 2022
Transformed
Pride
May 1, 2022 Powderly United Methodist Church
May 1 2022
Acts 9:1-6, Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19
February 6, 2022
Genesis 20
Gracious God, you see the heart, even when we do the wrong thing with what we think are good intentions, You see beyond our actions and use us for good, all for Your glory. Teach us even through our mistakes, more about you and grow us to be more in your image so more people will come to know You, even through our weaknesses. Amen
Genesis 19:1-25
Precious Father, sometimes what you are doing seems incomprehensible and it looks like there is no way out and we are so overwhelmed that we respond in our humanness, in ways that we have trouble understanding and forgiving ourselves for. But You are gracious and patient to forgive us and set our feet back on the path to lead us safely away from what would destroy us, back to You. Amen
Genesis 18:20-33
How wonderful you are God, that you would desire to have conversation with us. Not just because of Jesus but even as far back as Abraham when he bargained with you about the people of Sodom. You did not rebuke him, you did not shut him down, you saw him and his compassion for people and you responded in a way that makes me think you loved Abraham as he intervened for the people, asking Him not to destroy them if he found as few as ten people who were righteous. You knew the outcome and yet you graciously let Abraham see your compassion. Terrible things happen in this world and we cry out to you sometimes, trying to understand, but we know we can always bring our doubts, our pleas, our hurts, to you and you will listen to us. You are not just the God who sees, but also the God who hears. We thank you God for listening to us, and for your unfailing compassion. Amen
Genesis 17:4-5
Father God, the world names us many things. Some of them stroke our ego. Some break our hearts. The world judges us by its’ standards. We judge ourselves. We name ourselves. We look in the mirror and see flawed, we see a mistake, unworthy of love, an unredeemable sinner. We forget that we are looking in the wrong place and if we turn our eyes to you, you give us a new name. Loved, created in your image, forgiven, free. Help us to remember when we are caught up in that name game that you are the one true God, our Creator, and you have already judged us and sent Jesus to bear our sentence, our debt is already paid. You are the mirror that gives a true image and we can tell the world and our mirrors that they have no say over us. We are precious to You. We belong to You. You see us through the lens of Christ. Teach us to see like that O Lord, our redeemer, our comforter, author and finisher of our faith. Amen
Genesis 16:13-14
O God, when we are lost in a desert and it feels like we are alone and we can see no way, your word tells us that you are the God who sees. You see us when we feel alone, even when it is the people we care about who have turned their back on us.. You make a way when we can see none. What a blessing to know that when we feel no one else sees us – You do. May we always remember that. Amen
Genesis 15:2-5 and Genesis 16:1-6
God you are faithful. You keep your promises. Teach us to be patient and to remember that things happen in Your time, not ours. Help us to learn when action is needed by us and when we are to leave it in Your hands and just wait and trust. Amen
Genesis 6:14-8:12
Dear God, You who controls the elements, paints rainbows in the sky, sends doves to show us there is safety in you, may we learn to trust that even when you ask us to do things that seem crazy (like building a huge boat in the desert) or things that make others think WE are crazy, that if we are obedient, you will eventually bring us home and we will see that rainbow and remember that you are always always faithful. Amen
March 6 2022 Faith Muscles
March 2, 2022
Old Testament Reading
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
26:1 When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us.”
When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God, you shall make this response before the LORD your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.
When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me.” You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God. Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.
Epistle Reading
Romans 10:8b-13
10:8b “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.”
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Gospel Reading
Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.'” Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”
Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'”
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'”
Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Sermon
In our reading from Deuteronomy, I think it is helpful to read the very next verse in the chapter. Verse 12 says “When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled,)
I don’t know about you, but when I first read this text, I had this picture of people bringing baskets of stuff and leaving it there at the temple. Walking away, maybe thankful they were able to give, maybe grumbling because they had to give. I don’t know.
But the rest of the story is that it was used for a feast for all! The people, the priests, the travelers, the poor, the widow, A tenth..so everyone would be filled. They were to remember what God had done. To remember that they are descended from a wanderer, they were oppressed, they worked hard, they were in an alien land, and the Lord brought them to a place of home. Then they were to throw a party that included everyone to celebrate in sharing the blessing.
It was kind of like the first Methodist potluck.
God does not need our tithes. He does not need our fasts. Those are for us. We remember what God has done for us in the past to build up our faith muscles.
In our reading from Romans, it tells us that the Word is near. A pastor once said that God often puts things that are within our grasp, just out of reach so we will have to stretch a little. We are told that believing in our hearts and confessing with our mouths that Jesus Christ is exactly who He says he is. He is how we are saved and justified. But notice immediately after we are told that, we are told that God does not make distinctions between people in quite the same way we do.
I was thinking about this reading in terms of our physical bodies. Some of you may have experienced a heart attack. I have been fortunate so far to not have had that experience. But for the sake of discussion, imagine that you are in public, and you are having chest pains. They are getting worse and You come to a point where you think you are going to die. Someone bends down and says “I’m a cardiac surgeon. You are going to be okay.” Then you pass out and when you wake up, there is that man and You believe now, that he is exactly who he says he is because he just saved your life!
He sits down next to your bed (do doctors still really do that?) and tells you that he was able to repair the damage to your heart but he can tell that you still have some problems. Those problems are going to build and grow and clog up your arteries and eventually, you are going to be right back in the hospital. So, he tells you that you are going to have to make some changes.
You are going to have to change some of the things you have been taking in. Maybe you smoked. Maybe you didn’t eat right. He tells you that you will need to start eating healthier. More vegetables and less fat. And I don’t think he means eat a few peas and carrots at church on Sunday morning and go back to burgers and fries the rest of the week. You might look like you are doing good on Sunday, but the heart doctor is going to know the truth eventually. So you are going to need to stop taking in so much unhealthy stuff.
But! He tells you you can fill yourself up with healthy stuff. You need to start taking in the things that will make your heart (and your body) feel better. Every day.
He also tells you that you have been spending far too much time sitting on your backside. If you want your heart to be healthy, you need to get up and do things. Exercise those muscles.
You might resist a bit at first. But if you do the things this healer suggests, you slowly start to feel better. You start to get stronger. And something else happens to you. You begin to trust the doctor more.
I don’t know how many times I have read a snippet of scripture and thought, wow that’s good. And I stopped. And like the scriptures today, when you hear “the rest of the story” it hits you a little different.
If we had stopped on the first reading we would have thought that God just expected the people to give something up and leave it there. It was only when we read further that we saw it was to be a feast for all.
In Romans if we stop at the first part we think all we have to do is believe and confess. But faith is not a spectator sport and healing sometimes requires us to do our part. If you really believe in the doctor, you learn more about what he wants you to do and you do it and in the process you grow to trust him more. You change.
So when we come to our last reading that is so familiar to all of us. The temptation of Jesus. Trials and temptations are a part of this life on earth. What happens to us if we find ourselves in the wilderness and we start out from a place of weakness? Jesus had fasted and so he was hungry. But He had tools. When satan tempted him, he hit him in the places he thought would be weakest. The first temptation is food for someone who has not eaten for forty days. Man a cheeseburger would be looking good right then. Most of us do not even really remember being hungry. We eat our meals on time but I honestly can’t remember the last time I was just starving, to the point that the smell of food cooking had me salivating and my stomach growling. Satan thought this was a no brainer. But Jesus had an answer. He had not just been reading the parts of the bible that sounded good to Him. He WAS the Word.
Then satan shows him all the kingdoms of the world at one time. Thinking that power would tempt Jesus doesn’t even fit with my understanding of Christ but if I look at it in terms of Him being moved to compassion because to see all the kingdoms of the world, he would see all of the pain and poverty and oppression. It seems to me that the temptation would be to have the power to fix it.
The last temptation is that God will save You no matter what.
Can you imagine sitting in your hospital bed and the surgeon walks in and you cram that cheeseburger and fries in your mouth and dare him to say anything. Dare him, that he can’t fix you again. That just seems silly.
If you continue to live unhealthy and you show up at the same hospital in an ambulance, the surgeon won’t refuse to help you. But the consequences to your life because of your choices? The damage they caused? You still have to deal with that.
So maybe during this season of Lent as we prepare our hearts for Easter, we can be working out spiritually. Feeding our hearts and our minds on all of God’s Word. Building our faith muscles by remembering all that God has done in the past with gratitude and learning to trust and rest in the peace that God has plans for each of us and though we each have our own work to do, Jesus already did the hardest part. As we do all these things, spending time in prayer, spending time with the Word, serving God in whatever way He puts in your path, my prayer for each of us is that we grow closer to God because He will work in and through our hearts.
We are living in a time that feels like a constant barrage of bad news. The pandemic, economics, politics, war, We as Methodists, believe in action. We believe in service. Times like these can make us feel overwhelmed. I think of the old time bucket brigades they used to put out fires. What happens when your bucket feels like it is empty?
We have tools. We have these faith muscles that we have exercised and strengthened. Not just because we have a good coach or doctor or whatever metaphor makes the most sense to you. Because it doesn’t matter how many Sundays we sit in a pew or how good a sermon is preached from the pulpit, if we do not do the work ourselves. And even if we do that work and we have “Popeye” spinach sized faith muscles, sometimes even if we are walking the walk as well as talking the talk, we are going to look down and find our bucket is empty. That is where our community of believers comes in. If my bucket is empty, I can turn to one of you and you will loan me some of your faith. If your bucket is empty, I pray that you know that I will loan you some of my faith.
I spoke a couple of weeks ago on decluttering your heart. If my words today sound similar, there is good reason for that. Lent is a time for preparing our hearts. For me, that means several things. It means spring cleaning in my heart. It means letting God show me the things that need to go. It also means letting God show me what needs to stay and what He wants to fill me with. It means doing the work and for that I need God, and I need you.
I have been in the old testament in my readings since August and the biggest lesson for me and also the biggest challenge for speaking at church is that the message over and over again is the same. We are told that we are to love God and love others…in that order.
In the coming weeks we will need those spiritual muscles because we will be taking a journey…all the way to the cross. We may lose some things on the way. We may gain some things we didn’t even know we needed. But spoiler alert! The cross is not the end. It’s the beginning! Amen? Amen!
Praying Through the Bible Genesis 1:27
Wonderful creator of the entire universe. You created everything and thought to make us in your image. Help us to remember when we are frustrated and worried and feeling embattled from every direction, that we each carry that spark, that creativity, that incredible beauty that is You, that is Jesus, that is the Holy Spirit, and more than that, help us to remember to find You in each other, so that at the end of each day, we can look on it all and see that it is indeed, good. Amen
Easter 2021 John 20:1:18
John 20:1:18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.†Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?†She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.†When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?†Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.†Jesus said to her, “Mary!†She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!†(which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’†Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lordâ€; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
If you saw the last time I spoke, it was also from the book of John. I said then that John is all about who Jesus IS. John often shows us this Jesus with word pictures. We see how Jesus interacts with the disciples, with the pharisees, with people who are sick, in need, poor, dealing with demons. To me, John continuing to show us who Jesus is, after Jesus had died, is a clue. Jesus still IS and John is still showing us. And today we will look at Resurrection Day through the eyes of one person.
Imagine what this must have been like. It has been the worst week of all bad weeks. This Jesus whom the disciples loved, traveled with, their teacher, who had called them from the ordinary to the extraordinary, had been nailed to a cross, between two thieves. They had been through Friday. The bad news. The job lost. The marriage, broken. The unwanted diagnosis.
The horror of His death and now fearing that they too will be arrested – Saturday. Prayers prayed and what was the answer? Silence. Marriage still broken. No job and bills piling up. No miracle healing for the unwanted diagnosis. Saturday. The time between despair and joy. Yesterday I got to participate in hiding Easter eggs and then watching children run around finding them, watching their excitement as they filled their baskets with something sweet. I was thinking about how appropriate to fill that time of waiting between Good Friday and Easter Sunday with doing something for others because it doesn’t make Good Friday any less horrible, but it fills the time between catastrophe and heavenly response and it takes our mind from ourselves and our sadness and turns it to something or someone else and gives us moments of happiness. Between darkness and light. Between confusion and clarity.
Where are you God? Why don’t you answer? You failed me! I picture them remembering conversations with Jesus. Rethinking everything in light of His death. Recalling every word they said to Him. Wishing they had asked more questions. Grieving. The unthinkable. Jesus failed. Even the bible doesn’t say much about Saturday, just that guards were posted to watch over the tomb.
And then while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene ran to the tomb which is probably just a cave in the rocks. Even in darkness, even when heaven seems to be silent, Mary Magdalene runs to the last place she knew Jesus to be. When she finds that the stone has been rolled away from the front of the tomb she runs to tell Peter and the one whom Jesus loved which historians traditionally say is John. They also ran to the tomb and John got there first and bent down to look in. A translation I read said that the word used for “look” in this context, meant he was looking intently. He is looking at the wrappings and he is thinking, trying to figure out why grave robbers would leave the burial linens behind? Peter goes into the tomb and sees the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head was rolled up and sitting by itself. They believed and then they went home.
I remember sitting on a bench with my mother in front of my father’s grave. The funeral was over and everyone had gone home. It was sad and peaceful and we held hands. We didn’t say much. I knew my mom just needed that few moments. And then we too, went home. I wonder, if sometimes, heaven is silent to give us time.
Mary Magdalene stood outside the tomb in tears and she looked in the tomb and saw two angels where the body of Jesus had been. When she turned around there was Jesus, but she thought he was the gardener! She didn’t recognize Him.
Now a little background on Mary. Luke tells us a little bit. Luke 8:1-2 Tells us: Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,
Mark 5:1-5 gives us a picture of what someone with demons might have been like. “They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones.â€
The tombs may have been very familiar to Mary.
Now Mary is questioning this man that she thinks is the gardener. And Jesus doesn’t yell “SURPRISE!†and he doesn’t say “It’s me, Jesus!†He is kind. He says HER name. He loves her.
You know these days we are all about self. We are supposed to figure out who we are and what is wrong with us and then we can choose from thousands of self help books and try to make ourselves better. Commercials on television, ads on the internet, all offer to help us be the very best that we can be. Because the person we wish to be, never seems to live up to how the world sees us. We are too fat, too thin, too short, too old, too young, too sad, too mad, too happy. Too whatever. Even people who love us and often affirm us can be the source of pain when we think we do not live up to who they think we should be. Our identity is a mixture of who we think we are, and who others think we are or at least what we think they think. It’s very confusing.
But in the moment that Jesus says her name – she has clarity and her identity. Her identity in Jesus. She recognizes him and she sees herself. And she understands much, much, more.
You see, even though she had followed Jesus and listened to him teaching and personally experienced a miracle, she came to the tomb, looking for a dead Jesus. Even Peter and John, peering into the empty tomb at the linen wrappings, at first, were trying to reason out what could have happened to Jesus body.
Everything in our upbringing, our hearts and minds, the world, our culture, tells us to shrink Jesus. And you could almost do that. The Christmas story is about Jesus the baby. Jesus’ life is filled with stories and healing and things that are supposed to make us uncomfortable but they are things that can often be reasoned about, explained away. Until the resurrection. That changes everything, once for all and for always.
Both Peter and John and Mary Magdalene came looking for a small Jesus. A Jesus that they could understand. A Jesus that they loved and saw as an extraordinary person. But in the moment that Mary recognized the risen Savior. she was forever changed.
And what a picture this is! The first person to see the resurrected Christ was a woman, someone who had probably been mentally ill, homeless, not exactly an upstanding member of the church and not only was she the first human to see the risen Jesus, she was the first to be told to go and tell. She was His messenger!
There is a quote by author Annie Dillard that is how I picture Mary Magdalene. “I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.â€
Mary Magdalene was a bell. You are a bell!
What are some of the messages in this?
- There is grace. It is not what we do to fix ourselves or make ourselves better, because even if we have the desire, Paul tells us in Romans 7:15-18 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.â€
It is the work of Jesus. Period.
- Jesus makes deliberate decisions to do the will of God. He doesn’t accidentally get baptized. He doesn’t accidentally get tested by satan. He doesn’t accidentally call His disciples. He doesn’t accidentally ride into Jerusalem on a donkey during Passover when Pilate was riding in a military procession. Two very different pictures of power. Jesus did not accidentally die on the cross. If we follow this logic, Jesus did not accidentally reveal Himself to Mary instead of to Peter or John. We are saved by the grace and work of Jesus Christ but our growing in faith happens because of deliberate decisions that we make every day, sometimes, every moment.
- Jesus gives Himself to all of us. He comes gently. He does not muscle His way in or give us flashing signs. Mary Magdalene couldn’t see Jesus until he revealed Himself to her. He said her name. If we are to make disciples of all the world, as the great commission says, we have the perfect example of how to go about that. Jesus healed the illness Mary Magdalene was dealing with but He did not stop there. She went to the tomb while it was still dark. She knew Him. When He said her name, she knew Jesus. He knew her. That speaks of relationship, not just a good deed to check off some divine list.Â
- We understand the baby Jesus. We sort of understand, the living Jesus. We are uncomfortable with the crucified Jesus. We are changed when we recognize the risen Jesus. Jesus tells Mary not to hold on to Him. It would be human nature to want to keep Him there, to keep Him small. Jesus has bigger things to do. Kingdom things! He sends the Holy Spirit to help us, and once we have heard Jesus call our name, we are changed and we have kingdom things to do as well. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we deliberately choose to make kingdom choices.
- And last, It is Sunday. Without the resurrection, we as a people, might survive our Good Fridays. We might deal with our Saturdays, no matter how long they last. But when we believe, we as people of faith, have the hope that Sunday will come.Â
Today, Jesus is risen! Everything is different. We see a cycle of birth, life, and death. Jesus defies our little cycle and says, wait. There is more. Hold on to hope through the silence. Jesus had a Saturday. Heaven was silent. But when the answer came it was eternal.
Today a homeless person with a dodgy past and some mental issues, could come up to you and say, I have seen the Lord. The tomb is empty! He is not dead! He is risen! Today, you with your own imperfections, might be the one who is the living Jesus, for someone else because the power of the Holy Spirit is in you! Today, Jesus is saying your name. He loves you. Do you recognize him?
Prayer
Father, open our eyes that we would see You when You are standing in front of us, no matter what form You come in. Open our ears so that we recognize Your voice when You call our name. Fill us with the Holy Spirit because we know that tomorrow, Easter is over. The world is noisy, clamoring for our attention. Many of us are in the midst of our own Saturdays and need reminders of Easter. We need help to make those deliberate decisions to follow You. Help us also to see the Mary Magdalenes and all of those who pass by just in the corner of our vision, the ones that Jesus would not only call by name, but would call friends. Help us to see every single day, that here is where we practice faith, a rehearsal for Your kingdom. We are so grateful for your love, for your grace, for joy, for the work You did on the cross that we never tire of telling Your story, of learning more about You, of singing of Your glory, of being Your friends. We serve a risen, living savior. Amen.
In the Evening

Sometimes when the problems of the world
are too big
all we can do is climb a tree
and bear witness to the light
perched on a skeleton with feet sunk
in the mud
we can tiptoe out to the very edge
toes clutching tiny limbs
where wings can spread
and let the sun paint us asleep
Photo by Nelda Zamir
Lake Evening

as the trees hug the shore of the chilled lake
a lone tree bears witness to the sinking sun
twigs reaching for the last rays of warmth
orange fades to gray, blue fades to black
rooted and nourished, drinking deep from rain to lake
to tree to sky and round and round like earth and seasons
spinning sun to night and come the morning
all begins anew
Photo by Nelda Zamir